20: Singles and EPs '94-'96

Castle;
2003

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Whether naming songs after Soft Machine singers as a teenager or riding into the friscalating dusklight in Gene Clark's chaps in his mid-twenties, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci leader Euros
Childs has always seemed older than his years. Even when he was yelping like a poodle, on 1999's Spanish Dance Troupe, his playfulness was offset by mournful songs about
mortality. Having already stumbled through a period of summery should've-been hits, he's moving on to works of low-key genius, but Childs-- still only 28-- seems destined to be one
of the more underappreciated artists of our time.

Recent converts to Gorky's charm can catch up with the band's whimsical, wide-eyed folk-psych days with the recently released (and laboriously titled) 20: Singles and
EP's '94-'96. This collection of four EPs and two singles-- first pieced together for the Brit completists-- picks up two years after the band debuted on the Welsh label
Anskt, which was also the embryonic home of fellow countrymen Super Furry Animals. Presented in chronological order, it traces GZM's development from passable
70s garage rockers to mischievous alchemists with a sharp command of melody and harmony, ending just shy of their 1997 album Barafundle, the peak
of their pop-pysch-prog phase.

When these EPs were originally released, the British press focused on everything about Gorky's except their music: their nationality/language, youth, then-out-of-step influences
(Canterbury folk, the Beach Boys, Incredible String Band), and their distinctively heinous cover art. Gorky's were painted as your little brother's band, a playful diversion for those
who hadn't yet grown into Serious Music like, uh, Cast.

Skipping the fetish for fogeyism shared by many of their mid-'90s contemporaries, Gorky's purveyed willful eclecticism in the years compiled here, creating playful, offbeat songs full of odd time
signatures, and the occasionally unfortunate youthful indulgence. The everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to their music-- trombone, slide, Hammond, nylon guitar, and Moog
are all used on occasion, but never gratuitously-- extended to Childs occasionally swapping the then-favored Welsh for English, sometimes in the course of one song. Whether
courting humor on "The Game of Eyes" or displaying an early facility for pastoralism on "Pentref Wrth Y Mor", Gorky's eager early approach to genre blending makes sometimes-ponderous
genres like prog, psych, and folk seem infectious and spontaneous.

Although half of these songs appeared on the U.S.-only 1996 compilation Introducing Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, there are still enough reasons for anyone who owns that disc to pick up
20, and none better than "Heart of Kentucky", from the Ambler Gambler EP. The Western pastiche starts with comedic vocals before it inexplicably takes off on a Krautock
jaunt toward the horizon, sounding like the theme to some Sauerkraut Western.

Only a few years removed from making home recordings, these were still bedroom tapes-- limited releases for a limited audience-- but ideas like the self-explanatory "12 Explanatory
Soundscapes"-- which isn't nearly as drip-dry as its title suggests-- are expansive. Locked away from the public eye, working continually with the same sympathetic production and engineering
team (Alan Holmes and Gorwel Owen), Gorky's formative impulses and giddy, unpredictable approach to songwriting yielded a wealth of rich material in the mid-90s, and they've selected the
very best for 20.